Rage Grief Comfort &

When Spatula&Barcode were invited to participate in the Municipal show, we knew immediately that we wanted to create a project about responses to the election.  The resulting project, “Rage Grief Comfort &” used simple foods to allow the public to express emotions and then asked the question: besides being angry and fearful, what else can we do? The result was both a lot of fun and our most activist, overtly "political" project.

Staged for one day in a soon-to-be-remodeled city building, Municipal offered 100 artists the chance to create site-specific installations that were available to the public for one day only. 2,700 people walked through the front doors in spite of the raging snow storm.

You can read more about it at:
madisonbubbler.org/municipal/
Shuttered Municipal Building becomes temporary space for artists community party

Our project for Municipal, “Rage Grief Comfort &”, invited public participation at four stations.  At the first, spectators had the opportunity to throw ripe tomatoes at the wall. The second station provided an opportunity to cut onions and cry. The third station asked participants to peel potatoes which we then cooked, mashed, and served back to them with caramelized onions. Finally, audience members were invited consume one (or more) of the 1600 sugar cookies with an ampersand letter-pressed into them that were baked by Michael with the help of Andrew Salyer.

We think of the “&” as a reference to all the other work we are all already doing, making commitments to do, and will have to do.

The tomatoes were all cooked down overnight into a sauce (simmering rage) and served the following day, along with a carmelized onion sourdough focaccia, to the 99 other participating artists.  Also on offer at the de-install were the remaining mashed potatoes with a vegetarian gravy.

The “recipe” for Rage Grief Comfort & has been included in the kit for “Social Emergency Response Centers” distributed by the Design Studio for Social Intervention, and exhibited as part of the show “45th Landlord” at CEAC in Auckland, New Zealand. A brief documentation essay will appear in the forthcoming “Not a Trump Issue” edition of Liminalities.